


Death is Normal (But Not Yours)

by Zoadgo



Category: Z Nation (TV)
Genre: Canon Major Character Death, Gen, Mourning, post 2x02
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-22
Updated: 2015-09-22
Packaged: 2018-04-22 20:10:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4848854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zoadgo/pseuds/Zoadgo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>They keep moving. It doesn’t matter that one of their group, one of the ones who kept them going and killed and lived alongside them isn’t doing any of that anymore. They keep moving.</i>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Addy, Warren, and 10K deal with Mack's loss.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Death is Normal (But Not Yours)

**Addy**

They keep moving. It doesn’t matter that one of their group, one of the ones who kept them going and killed and lived alongside them isn’t doing any of that anymore. They keep moving. There’s no time for any of them to mourn, so Addy clings to anger, glancing at Murphy whenever she feels tears stinging her eyes. If he had just gone with them, if he hadn’t run, if they hadn’t had to chase him, everything would still be okay. 

Addy shifts in her seat, staring out the window and trying to ignore the empty space next to her. She’d taken the front passenger seat, and she’ll keep taking it in every vehicle they steal. There’s no way she can sit in the backseat again, not when she’d always been back there, because sitting in the front meant being away from Mack’s side, and that was a feeling she hated. Even when she was with the Sisters, she hated being away from him.

No one talks in the van, save for Warren and the new guy, who introduces himself as “Vasquez” at one point, and directs Warren on the best path to take to avoid the nuclear fallout. Addy doesn’t want to avoid the fallout. She gets less angry every time she looks at Murphy, who doesn’t even try to fight the ties on his hands, doesn’t make a single sarcastic comment. Without the burning rage, Addy feels the gnawing blackness inside her that demands she acknowledge the fact that there’s one less person in the van than there ought to be, but she can’t. She never wants to face that fact, to have to remember Mack alongside her mother and her brother. If she dies before she sleeps, maybe she won’t have to add him to her nightmares.

Though she can’t die, nausea crawls through her veins at the thought of living. Addy curls her hands into fists in her lap. She doesn’t want to go on, doesn’t want to find somewhere to camp, go to sleep alone, and wake up without Mack by her side for the first time since they met. But she’s the only one who remembers everything about him, now. None of the others know the way that he used to smile when he woke up and looked at her, or how scared he was during Black Summer, or the way he used to smother his groans when they would sneak off while “on patrol”. She has to live, to kill every last Z out there, make everyone who robbed her of him pay for their actions.

Vasquez directs them off on a back road, apparently having scouted this area before, and none of them question him. They don’t have it in them to be suspicious of the man who was their enemy hours ago. Warren simply follows his directions to a barn in the middle of a field, somewhere with no zombies in sight. They pile out of the car once it stops, hands on their weapons, and Addy feels bile burning her throat as she checks behind her. She’d never had to watch her back, Mack had always had her six.

The sweep of the barn is quick, far too easy for the energy within Addy. She wants a fight, anything to occupy her mind, but rotting straw is no kind of opponent, and they set up a rough camp without incident. Vasquez ties Cassandra and Murphy together, and neither of them fight, Cassandra glancing at Murphy but allowing it when he shakes his head. Doc and 10K lean against a wall together, Doc’s arm slung around 10K’s shoulders, whispering softly as 10K’s youth shows in the tears tracking down his face. Vasquez and Warren start going over their supplies, talking about useful things in quiet voices, and Addy can’t stand stand the quiet grief hanging over them all.

“Give me your gun.” Her throat is tight as she stalks over to 10K, holding out her hand and sniffing a traitorous nose. She has to get away from them, and she might as well be useful. 

10K hands over the weapon without protest, and she can’t think of how hurt he must be to part with his weapon so easily. If she thinks about that, she might end up sliding down the wall next to him, and she won’t do that. She simply grips the wood of the rifle tight and climbs to the hayloft, glancing at the ceiling until she finds a hatch that gives her access to the roof.

It’s a struggle to get up there with the rifle, but Addy manages, and once she’s in place to scan the surrounding fields and keep them slightly safer, she feels a little better. She breathes in the fresh air, gentle breeze seeming stronger up high, and the nausea and darkness inside her ebbs, allowing her to look around without her eyes stinging. She studies the fields for the slightest signs of movement, but they’re alone as far as she can tell.

On the roof, her grief is not so bad. She can ignore her loss in favour of the view, and she can imagine Mack is down below with the rest of the group, probably telling them all that they were stupid to trust Vasquez so easily. She smiles to herself, imagining how he would talk about the fact that just because he hasn’t betrayed them yet, doesn’t mean he isn’t going to. On top of the barn, there’s no reason for her to face the fact that he’s gone, so she doesn’t. In time, the whisper of the wind and the gently flowing grass around the building lull her to sleep.

_“Oh, baby. You know, if I ever need mercy, I really hope it’s you.”_

Addy wakes with a gasp, words she’d thought she’d forgotten echoing in her mind. The regular nightmares had come, and then Mack had been there, like he always was. She almost reaches for him, almost tries to find comfort in a body that’s not there before she properly wakes up, scrubbing tears from her cheeks. 

The sun is touching the horizon, and Addy realizes she can’t stay on the roof forever. The others are expecting her to keep watch, and she’s just proven she can’t, so she has to go back down and swap off with someone. She takes a last few breaths of clean air before descending back into the barn, where the others are still talking quietly in their little groups. It takes a moment for Addy to descend to the ground level, and then she holds out the gun.

“Someone else should take watch.” She looks at 10K, but he can’t seem to meet her eyes, and Doc isn’t a good enough shot to be any help. Cassandra and Murphy are definitely not to be trusted, so Addy expects Warren to take the gun from her. But it’s the person next to Warren who pushes himself to his feet with a groan.

“I’ll go. Getting some fresh air would be good, this barn’s secure, but it’s not exactly clean.” Vasquez grabs the gun, but Addy doesn’t let it go yet.

“He would tell us not to trust you.” Addy can’t say his name, but even mentioning him directly brings tears to her eyes, and she clears her throat painfully. Vasquez simply shrugs, and after a moment, Addy lets go of her grip on the rifle. Mack wouldn’t have trusted him, but Mack’s not there anymore.

Vasquez climbs the path Addy had just descended, and Addy can’t move. She’s rooted to the spot and she can feel the tears she’s not supposed to shed fighting her, and her control is slipping by the second. Giving the gun to Vasquez when she should have been handing it off to Mack or keeping watch with Mack and sleeping in shifts on the roof feels wrong, and every negative feeling that the clean air had smothered comes back full force.

“I’m so sorry, Mack.” 

It’s a strangled whisper as Addy falls to her knees and gives herself over to grief. She sobs like she had when she remembered killing her mother, sorrow tearing her chest and leaving her helpless. She doesn’t expect the arm that curls over her back, but she turns into the comfort, burying her face in Warren’s shoulder. She can’t make out the words that Warren says, doesn’t even understand her own sobbed sentences, she simply cries in Warren’s arms until her throat is raw, and everything hurts as bad as her heart does.

It doesn’t help, but it does exhaust her enough to sleep. Waking up is terrible, but she does it for Mack, and every single breath she takes from that day onward is simply because he would have wanted it.

**Warren**

She was never good enough. This was the problem, this was why people kept dying around her. If Warren had been better, if she had caught Murphy earlier or never antagonized him to the point of running in the first place, Mack would still be alive. Warren lets the bitter self hatred fuel her actions, giving her the strength to keep moving solely due to the fact that if she’s alive when Charlie and Mack are dead, she can’t do anything less than her best. It’s not right to their memory.

Warren gets in the driver’s seat of the car, and Addy is next to her. It’s a strange sight, in all the times Warren’s been the driver, she’s never seen Addy in the front seat. The redhead was always in the back with Mack, like they were joined at the hip, and the new arrangement drives home the wrongness of their group, now that they’ve lost another member. She focuses her eyes on the road and tries to distract herself with the mission.

“You seem to know about the fallout, bounty hunter, which way should we go?” Warren has a rough idea of where to go, but talking about what to do next is easier than facing what just happened.

“Name’s Vasquez,” Warren grunts in acknowledgement, not offering her own name, “and take a right up ahead. I know that won’t take us West, but we’re going to have to do a lot of edging around to get to California. Unless you want to go to a more convenient buyer.”

“We’re taking him to California,” Warren’s bites the words out, turning where Vasquez had indicated. That was the mission that Mack had believed in, even if he’d only done so for Addy. Warren glances over at Addy briefly, but she’s staring out the window, far too still and composed. Warren worries that once again, she’s not going to be good enough, and Addy’s going to do something stupid. Not that Warren would judge her, she’d almost willed herself to death after Charlie died.

The highway rolling past does little to distract Warren from the loss of another team member, but she refuses to think of him as anything other than a comrade lost in battle. That, she can handle. It’s unfortunate, but it’s not the same biting loss of losing family. She focuses on the road, and how they’re going to secure Cassandra and Murphy, and if they can really trust Vasquez. But he seems to be cooperative, and Warren doesn’t have it in herself to be suspicious of him, not when that would mean she could only trust half the people in the van.

“Take that turn off, there’s a barn up that way that’s in relatively good repair,” Vasquez leans forward to point at the dirt road he means, and Warren nods, following his directions. 

He proves to be telling the truth, and the group scans the barn quickly, finding absolutely nothing alive or dead anywhere near them. Warren grabs their supplies from the van to figure out their rationing, another way of distracting herself, as Vasquez secures Murphy and Cassandra. She notices Doc supporting 10K, but she can’t bring herself to look at them as 10K starts crying. She knows she should go over and give him some comfort, but she can’t.

Addy leaves for the roof, and Warren worries she’s going to jump off or shoot herself. But she can’t go after her, not because the planning she’s doing with Vasquez is that important, but because she can’t face her own sadness, let alone Addy’s. Once again, Warren’s going to be a failure. She wasn’t a good enough soldier to save Charlie, was almost not a good enough lover to mercy him. She’s not a good enough leader, Mack’s death, Cassandra’s zombification, and Murphy being bound so he doesn’t run are testament to that. And now she’s not even a good enough friend to mourn Mack or comfort Addy or 10K.

She focuses on rationing, on listening to Vasquez and responding to him, and she’s able to push down her emotions for a few hours. They plot out a course, and they start going over details again once they’ve planned everything they can. Warren doesn’t know if Vasquez thinks she’s trying to just be really certain of everything, or if he knows that this is how she’s coping. Either way, she’s grateful that he doesn’t question her when she asks him to map out the fallout’s rough areas a third time.

Warren can’t look up when she hears Addy come down from the roof and ask for someone to take watch. Addy’s alive, but Warren did nothing to ensure that, and guilt crawls into her mind as Vasquez stands to take watch. Now Warren’s not even a good enough person to take over standing sentry, and she can’t focus her mind back on the map in front of her. 

Warren hears a strangled noise from next to her, and she forces herself to look at Addy, watching as the younger girl falls to her knees, and Warren can’t distract herself any more. She feels the urge to go and hold Addy, and she doesn’t fight it, pulling her into a hug and allowing her to sob on her shoulder. Warren feels tears of her own falling, and she doesn’t try to hold them back.

“I wasn’t enough, I’m so sorry,” Warren whispers it to Addy, and to the memory of Mack. Mack’s loss burns in her soul, right next to Charlie and Antoine. She’d loved the kid in a different way, but she has to admit that she did love him, and it’s almost more pain than she can take. Warren can feel the urge to lay down and do nothing, to sacrifice herself because she’s failed again, but Addy shakes in her arms, and that’s enough to fight off the worst of it. She has to stay alive, has to be there for the rest of her loved ones. 

“I’m gonna keep you safe, nothing’s going to happen to you,” Warren promises Addy, knowing she probably can’t hear her, but needing to say it anyway. Because if she had loved Mack like a brother or a son, she loves Addy just the same, and how can Warren possibly expect Addy to go on if she herself gives up? The pain of Mack’s death doesn’t get any less, but the desire to live and fight for those of her little adopted family gradually starts to win against the violent depression that Warren knows is waiting for her.

By the time Addy falls asleep, Warren is willing to live again. It’ll hurt, and she’ll feel Mack’s loss every time she sees Addy sitting shotgun, but she can handle the pain, if only to keep her family safe.

**10K**

It happens every time. Every time that 10K gets attached to someone, they die, and it never gets any easier. When they have a crisis to deal with, he can ignore the pain for a while, but it always comes back. He craves a cigarette as he climbs into the van, pointing his gun at Cassandra for lack of anything better to do.

He tells himself that this time, he won’t cry. He tries not to feel sick at the fact that he’s pointing a gun at Cassandra, and the fact that she hardly seems to recognize him. He wonders if she still remembers his name, and the thought that she might not makes him angry at Murphy for having done whatever he did to her. The anger helps, but the pain is still there, waiting as patient as a sniper for an opening to pounce and latch onto his heart.

The van ride is quiet, Warren and Vasquez being the only two to speak, and it feels wrong. Someone was always cracking a joke whenever they shared a vehicle, there’s never been this tenseness that settles in 10K’s gut and makes him feel like he’s suffocating. He had thought it was bad when they’d lost Garnett, but this is so much worse. There was a sort of frantic urgency back then, and now there’s just a gnawing sense of purpose that’s not enough to drive away the pain.

When they get to the barn that Vasquez directs them to, 10K considers tying up Cassandra and Murphy. He even grabs the rope to do so, but his hands start to shake as he contemplates it. The last time he’d tied someone up, it had been his father, and that memory proves to be too much for 10K’s fragile control over his emotions. He passes the ropes off to Vasquez, and thankfully the bounty hunter seems to understand what that means, because 10K is confident he can’t speak as grief pikes him, almost driving him to his knees.

It’s only Doc supporting him and leading him to a wall, which he slides down once they reach it, that keeps 10K on his feet, and that just hurts more, because Doc caring for him probably means he’s going to die, and 10K doesn’t know if he can handle more loss. It’s almost funny that he’s built his whole persona, his name and everything, around death, but loss is different from mercying Zs. Mercying a Z is an accomplishment, one less danger in the world because of his skills, but loss has nothing good about it. His friends dying is just bad, and there’s enough bad in the world, should they not be spared this pain at the very least?

10K cries silently, leaning into Doc’s shoulder despite the fact that he knows forming an attachment is a bad idea. It’s too late, anyway, he already cares too much about Doc and the others, there’s no way to close himself off from the pain that will inevitably come with their deaths. When Addy asks for his gun, 10K barely even registers it beyond handing it over. She won’t look at him, and 10K’s glad. He doesn’t like being this weak, doesn’t enjoy being brought down so low by the pain.

His world has always been about being strong and surviving, but Mack was one of the strongest people 10K knew, and that hadn’t been enough for Mack to keep himself alive. Every time that someone dies, it drives it home to 10K that there’s nothing in the world that can truly keep you safe, no weapon or defense strong enough to hold off the world’s evil whims. 

10K can’t look at anyone as he cries, because he knows that it’s wrong for him to be this useless. He hates himself for being unable to carry through the pain to plan like Warren, or to go on watch like Addy. But all he can think about is the fact that Mack will never tease him again, or find the right bullets for his gun, or ask him for advice on being a better marksman. Mack had always treated 10K as an equal, and 10K wishes he had been there, wishes he could have saved him from the zombies. He wishes his number was higher, maybe if he was at four thousand he would have already killed those Zs, and Mack would be sitting up on the roof with Addy right now.

The tears dry up eventually, and 10K scolds himself mentally for wasting the water. Guilt weighs him down: guilt over being useless, over being weak, over being wasteful, over losing Mack. He tries to get up when Addy asks for someone to swap out guard with her, but he can’t move, can’t even look at her. He doesn’t even want his gun back, not if it’s not going to be enough for him to save his friends.

10K’s not certain he ever actually falls asleep, but eventually they’re all getting up and back in the van, and he manages to move. He’ll keep on moving, keep on caring for people and losing them, but he knows he has to keep going if he wants to survive, and survival is the only thing he can cling to that he’ll never lose, not until it’s too late for him to care, anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, so is that the worst work summary ever, or what? Anyway, this is just my way of dealing with s02e02, don't really have much more to say about it than that! I was going to do Doc, Murphy, and Vasquez as well, but then I fell asleep. I suppose if people are interested I could do it? Anyway! Thanks to [coldsaturn](http://coldsaturn.tumblr.com) for living up to her reputation of best editor ever!
> 
> Come cry with me [on tumblr!](http://jonnmurphy.tumblr.com) Thanks in advance for commenting/viewing/leaving kudos <3


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